


Reach Out

by redchanks



Category: Great Gatsby - F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby (2013)
Genre: Abstract, Angst, Canon Compliant, Colours, F/M, Flowers, Perspective shifts, Symbolism, Time - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-01
Updated: 2018-01-01
Packaged: 2019-02-26 01:27:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 923
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13225302
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/redchanks/pseuds/redchanks
Summary: How did Gatsby and Daisy think that their summer of love would really end?





	Reach Out

I remember us in July. The thick air laid across our shoulders, on her, a fur stole, on me, a woollen uniform. Lazy, drifting bees and lazy, drifting boys, languishing in the lakeside mansions of Louisville. Cocktails dripping from laughing lips, dresses slipping from shaking shoulders, and us, in the middle of it all, like embers in the blaze of glory. Our July days were soaked in ochre and fragranced with chrysanthemums, and our touches fizzed like champagne, brief and blinding-bright.

I remember us in August. The nights that never darkened, the lights flitting like jewel-bright fireflies, saturating the others in sapphire and ruby and amethyst, but her, always diamond, bursting, gleaming, hovering above the rest, lilacs tumbling through her locks like the fronds of Pan’s creations, skin shining in their lavender glow. Us, ensconced in her ivory tower, watching them throw their jewels into the water like children begging for wishes from a well, knowing that only we endure.

I remember us in September. Umber and amber and embers, caught in an endless dance, and us, twirling amongst them. Her cheeks, blooming like blushing stocks, her laugh sending us into a heady daze, our voices twisting and throbbing in ripe joy. Evenings sipping apple cider, spice prickling on our lips, subtle smoke in her breath. Her fervent love backlit against flickering firelight, and her fears melting in its golden glow.

I remember us last night. She had stolen all the warmth in this world, and kept it safe within her smoking cheeks, her bitten, wet lips stained with scarlet roses and scarlet wine. I won’t leave you. It leaked out of every pore, every orifice except our lips, this paralysing promise. It played out of our swollen gramophone and curled from the fireplace, out of the open window and into the bitter world.

I write it all down for her, though I’ve never been good with words. I prefer to create the world out of colour and smoke and lights, and have her wear it like a perfect halo. But I’ll try, for her. I’ll try to leave her something she can hold onto to when she can’t feel me beside her, some words that tell our story when all others tell her we weren’t real.

There is nothing more real than us, Daisy, not money, not truth, not time.

***  
Jay.

It’s hard to keep faith when you’re not beside me. They’re knocking on the door to our tower, they’re pulling out the white stones, they’re burying in the mud, they’re blackening like ash. All the red roses we stroked against our lips, all the Queen Anne’s lace you strung around my waist, they’re dying, Jay, I can’t keep it alive any longer.

He bought me an orchid, Jay. He filled a hotel room with them, every shade and permutation of purple, and ordered a fleet of gowns to match. On Monday, it was lavender tulle, on Tuesday, mauve silk, on Wednesday, violet chiffon and then I lost track, and the days blurred into nights struck with blackberry and lilac skies, and each time I woke the dying orchids were fresh and vibrant and new again.

I found the box you gave me, the one where I stored all those gifts, those glowing memories of our golden summer. The crimson carnations had crumbled, the blue hyacinths snapped and broken, the rainbow of asters razed to dust. Their scent was overwhelming, my eyes watered, my breath grew laboured, I couldn’t see through the fog of lost emotion. In my eyes, Jay, you became a dim, hazy cast, and you slipped through my fingers like shimmering champagne thread losing its magic, and transforming back to hay.

I’m going to marry him, Jay. He fills up my world to the point he could never extract himself. His voice shatters every window, his boots mark every floor, his aftershave is the only fragrance of the air I force into my lungs. Every touch leaves a bruise, but I need that more than I need the barest, gentlest caress against my fingertips. You brushed against my fingers so they felt lighter than gauze, but it was too light, Jay, and the memory of your touch caught the wind and floated away like a balloon. He gave me a ring, a ring so laden with the weight of all it means, that I am bound to this earth forever.

He threw me a party, by the water where women’s jewels are buried like the treasure of a long-forgotten past. The women still sparkled with this season’s fashions, with topaz and opal and pearl, and with all-new copies of things they cast aside too soon, things they could still mine for compliments and triumph.

The reflections of amethyst and sapphire and ruby flickered in and out of my being, and then I felt something draw them from me. The weight of my emerald on my hand, dragging all the colour from my world, absorbing it into its wicked whirlpool depths. I felt its sneering glint seep into my bones, my blood polluting, a sickly, glowing poison, and it choked me. My throat filling up, my eyes glazing over, my heart pounding from its gilded cage, and I opened my mouth to scream, but all that spilled out was emerald light. Emerald light, spiralling, forcing, beaming out like a beacon, crying out for you.

I’m moving to Chicago, and I don’t know if the light will follow. But reach out across the water, Jay. Maybe one day, you’ll reach me.

 

**Author's Note:**

> This was another one of my coursework pieces! The theme was 'perspective' (specifically Daisy's and/or Gatsby's). Y'all know I'm usually all about that Nick/Gatsby life (who isn't) but nevertheless, I was pretty pleased with this. Kudos and comments are very much appreciated :)


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